Tactile Sensation

AbstractWhen you drive a car, you can sense pressure, vibrations, and warmth in your hands as you grip the steering wheel. You experience such events because contact with the steering wheel triggers activity in sensory receptors in your skin wherever contact occurs. These receptors respond to mechanical and/or thermal energy, leading to sensory experiences that are collectively described as tactile sensations. Other sensations you may have from your skin, including pain and itch, are not generally included in this definition. Tactile sensations are passively elicited as a result of stimulation by some external source. This is in contrast with haptic perception, which typically involves contact with the external environment through active manual exploration. These two modes of tactile experience result in an interesting distinction. When your skin is passively stimulated, you typically focus your attention on your internal subjective tactile sensations (although it is often possible to perceive external objects and their properties). In contrast, when you haptically explore, you tend instead to focus your attention on the external world.